Rashan Brown is one of five winners of the Eventbrite RECONVENE Accelerator Program. The spoken word poet was given $20,000 to help advance his work and plan a dream event to showcase his poetry.

Brown grew up in the Wakefield section of the Bronx and attended Mt. St. Michael High School. He says the streets where he was raised and the people he grew up with are the inspiration for his spoken word poetry today.

He says he first started using poetry to express himself after suffering a heartbreak in high school and he's been doing it ever since. Brown started the spoken word poetry community, Poetry Me, Please, about two years ago so that poets would showcase and share their work.

Brown says he plans to use the Eventbrite award to hold a Poetry me, Please showcase in Brooklyn on Oct. 8.